Our solidarity to Cadburys workers who today begin an indefinite strike at the Coolock
plant against the outsourcing of jobs. The company is trying to destroy 17 properly paid
and pensionable jobs to replace them with minimum wage ones. ---- The outsourcing is seen
as part of a pattern where the management from Mondelez International have been
downgrading the plant, its believed they have no long-term commitment to the facility
something confirmed by the company threat that “this action ultimately endangers the jobs
of the circa 700 people who are employed within the business”. Right now in Chicago
workers are resisting similar attacks by Mondelez International at an Oreo cookies plant
where they want to lay off half the 1200 workers and move production to Mexico where
workers are paid a lot less.

Like the LUAS strike the background to this strike is also an attempt to resist the
massive shift over the last two decades that has seen the share of profits going to owners
rise massively and that to workers falling. This is reflected in the management statement,
if dressed up by the PR department as “under intense pressures from international
competition” and “with the aim of streamlining it to become more sustainable and
competitive for the future.” Both these are coded terms translating into a demand for a
bigger share of the profits going to shareholders - this trend is why 62 people now own
half the wealth in the word.

Mondelez International had revenue of 33.2 billion dollars in 2014 and made profits of
2.18 billion in that year. It was formally known as Kraft and as Kraft in 2012 it gave
almost 2 million dollars to the US based "Coalition Against The Costly Food Labeling
Proposition" which was set up to oppose a proposed law requiring GMO containing foods to
be labelled as such in California. In 2015 the US Commodity and Futures Commission said
Mondelez Global had made 5.4 million dollars through alleged price fixing on the global
wheat market. Alexia Howard,according to the Wall Street Journal "a closely-followed food
and beverage analyst at Bernstein" forecast last year that Mondelez should be able to
increase its profit rate from 12 to 18%

The media prevent the mechanisms of this shift in the share of profits whether it be
outsourcing to low wage areas or a refusal of wage rises as some sort of inevitable
natural law that workers have to accept in a race to the bottom. The intention is to make
workers in different countries compete to accept wage cuts and worsening conditions. In
this case the Labour Court followed the same pro boss logic but by 302 to 20 the workers
in SIPTU and UNITE have voted to reject the Labour Court finding.

SIPTU Sector Organiser, John Dunne, said: “Union members voted overwhelmingly to take this
action following an announcement by management that it intends to unilaterally implement a
Labour Court recommendation and outsource the jobs of 17 directly employed store workers.
The work stoppage at the plant will continue until management ends the attempt to
outsource these jobs.

“The Labour Court recommendation had previously been rejected by a large majority of the
350 union members employed in the production plant. SIPTU and UNITE members proposed
further talks on reducing costs and increasing flexibility in relation to the operation of
the store facility at the plant. This proposal was rejected outright by management leaving
the workers with no option but to take the industrial action that will begin tomorrow
morning.”

Unite Regional Coordinating Officer Richie Browne reiterated the unions’ call for the
company to withdraw its plans to outsource key roles and instead to discuss the proposals
put forward by the unions.

“Unite and SIPTU have made a number of proposals to management regarding alternative ways
in which efficiencies could be delivered. Even at this late stage, we remain available for
meaningful engagement with the company to discuss these proposals.

SIPTU Manufacturing Division Organiser, Gerry McCormack, said: “The attempt to outsource
these jobs is seen as a further erosion of the viability of the facility. It follows the
movement of the production of the ‘Time Out’ bar from this plant to Poland.

“Workers at the plant have over recent years agreed to the major restructuring of
operations and changes in work practices. However, the attempt by the management of
Mondelez International to further downgrade the plant’s operations has caused outrage and
increased fears among the workforce about its long-term commitment to the facility.”

After a decade of defeats and low expectations its long passed time when workers need to
act in solidarity not only to defeat these sort of profit grabs by the bosses but also
fighting to expand our share, as the LUAS workers are doing. The boss owned media have
done a very good job of setting us against each other instead. That needs to end.